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Hello there!

Dropping by to share what was made at Sundays Workshop!
I had 5 lovely ladies and two volunteers helping me by running about and doing the dishes (bless their cotton socks!)(Someone doing my dishes?? All my dreams come true right there!!)

We start off with some introductions, and some cake and coffee while I… basically talk a lot!!
There is a lot of important info that goes along with it all – so hopefully got all the essential basics without overwhelming everyone.

I have a bunch of soaps at the table for inspiration – plus its just nice for people to check stuff out and see what is possible in the soap making realm.
I have my supplies table where everyone can sniff the fragrances and look through the colours and moulds

Then there is the table where all the action happens. The loaf that I pre made to cut… somehow have missed getting a photo of that!

I pre mix most of the lye and bring it along in jars cooled and ready to use.
I do the one demo of mixing the lye as its critical and VERY important for people to realise just how dangerous this stuff can be and how to handle it.

Then into the soap making – so much fun when everyone gets to choose what they are going to make.

As you can see… quite the variety!
The super fun part is me packing up and balancing all these in the car for the 25 minute drive back home (in the rain of course)
I will come up with a better transport system soon I think.
The classes have filled very quickly and we had to put another one on at the end of the month – and I think there might be a waiting list???
I am feeling very popular haha.

The ladies had a really nice day and I’ve heard some lovely feedback so thats really encouraging!
The soap unmoulded well and I should be able to deliver most of it tomorrow.
(Although there is still the agony of the 4 week curing wait before use)(They all get their full batch of soap that they made which is more soaps than what I have arranged in the photos)

This is Maidie’s soap. Blueberry with a sweet drop swirl and white sprinkles on top!

Debbie chose coconut and lime and we made a mix with the fresh green in some really pretty moulds

Karen settled on the Belgium Chocolate fragrance and made a whole heap of completely edible looking soaps!

Divine!

Kaye selected one of my favourite fragrances – Anjou Pear and Lemon Zest!
She’s mixed a burgundy mica back into the base mix to pour and its turned out super pretty!

A new friend of mine, Kasia, (Met at the avocado carving workshop) joined in my workshop and got extra creative with her soaps

She dusted her moulds with gold mica first, and then lined the flower moulds with some mermaid blue. The result was a gorgeous old world effect.
The speckles in the base mix is from the madder root powder and she’s also put in some oatmeal as a scrub!

As for me… I did my usual show off demo at the end. Kasia has made a video and when thats done I hope to upload it to my FB page so you can take a peek at the process!!

I was actually quite thrilled with this one!
This is a colour combination to repeat!
I used lemongrass for the fragrance as I know it behaves.

Since the community centre doesn’t charge a hire fee for me to do these classes, I’ve decided that I’ll donate the demo soaps when they are cured to them.
Last months batch is nearly sold out which is awesome. So they can raise $80 from the batch and that money can go back into the centre for things they need.
They do a great job doing community based ‘stuff’ everything from gardening to a large variety of workshops.

I’ll be honest… it might break my heart to part with this one !!!
(I must make another one soon while I remember exactly what I did!!)
(Shall we call it ‘Phoenix Rising’ ?? Jeff seemed to think it reminded him of turkey feathers but that name doesn’t have the same grand ring to it!!!)

Hope your week has been fabulous
Cheers!

OK, yes yes, they are not veggies! But they are perfectly arranged chooks!!

Pretty excited to be finally eating our broccoli

I’ve got one more left that still has its main head, but the side shoots are growing nicely so we should be able to nibble on those for a while too

The hothouse potatoes are still looking happy

Grass basket in use to pick some more chillies!

While Pip snoopervised

A couple of garden disasters…
First… the bloody blackbirds decided to snick off a LOT of my lovely garlic shoots!
They don’t even eat them!! Just destroy!

Sob.
I’ve since netted both plots – and hope the pruned ones grow back

And the reason I say don’t store pumpkins on their bottoms??

And it wasn’t on its bum for long either!! Sadly nothing was able to be salvaged from it.
Luckily I had more.. but disappointed in myself for putting off moving this one when I should have

I can’t believe that we are scarcely two weeks shy of spring!

The cherry plum trees have just started to blossom and there are daffodils starting to show everywhere!
It all seems to have come up fast!
Hope you’ve had a lovely day!
Cheers

Hello!!
Sorry its been an eon. I’ve been caught up in a multitude of ‘stuff’ and haven’t made time to get back to photos and the blog!
Thought I might just share the latest Challenge Photos

The challenge is done… more or less. Waiting for the last photos to be submitted then finish voting. Quite speedy for this group for a change
The first subject was ‘GLOWING COLOURS’

Jeff was helping me do something which involved glowsticks and the clothes line and all the photos sucked haha
So I got him to whirl them over his head and… Voila! My first photo!

Second subject was ‘MISMATCHED’
I went a bit … creative with this one

“Sparky came from the wrong end of town but he put on his bow tie and struck up a conversation with Miss Match.
A flame of love was kindled but unfortunately her parents thought he looked a bit burnt out and their relationship was a total mismatch…
(Sorry, not sorry)”

(This might explain where a lot of my time goes)

You saw the image for SHOES (Jeff’s Bigfoot)
And I might have shared this already but the next subject was FOOD

Then RAIN

Next was TRANSPORT and you’ve seen Pipsworth in his Plane..

Following was GRASS

I made a spectacular mess in the lounge room making a grass basket as a prop.

I’d gathered a lot of dried paddock grass from next door and sewed it together with flax

Its a little wonky but really sturdy!

Next subject was SPOOKY!

Cue poor Jeff again to sit about posing for me

I found the frame at a market and stretched some black stocking over the middle.
I originally envisioned someone coming through the frame but this ended up looking decidedly spooky enough!

The 9th subject ‘HIDDEN’ gave me the most grief!
I seriously couldn’t come up with an idea. I knew my Dad was posting a funny shot of their cat with only her tail showing so I didn’t want to compete with that and make use of Pip again
Turns out we could have renamed the album ‘HIDING CATS’ with the amount of artfully and not so artfully concealed feline photos posted! So funny

In the end I used a little wooden apple I had when I was a kid. The tea set gets hidden in the apple. I loved it as a kid and its very sweet.

The last subject we had was ‘OPEN’ which we’ve never done before!
Its harder than you might think without the guidance!

I went down to Fossil Bluff at sundown and high tide to play around with the water and slow shutter speeds. It was fun and settled on the following shot

Well… there you have it!
I enjoy these challenges – rather than just taking snaps of whats in front of me, I have to go work at it and think about it! I enjoy that!

I’ll be back to tell you about my latest workshop and other ‘stuff’ thats been going on soon!
I am feeling tired as we moved our piano today! As in moved it out of the house!
Cousins have taken it which is great and now we have a lot of space in our hallway!

I’ll leave you with a few more splashy photos from my evening at Fossil Bluff! Hope you are all well
Cheers

Oh… and one of ME!

Hi! Hope everyone had an excellent weekend!

So…Embroiled in the photo challenge and instead of gardening or doing other useful stuff… I am spending my time making props and fulfilling ideas about taking photos

Subject: TRANSPORT

At first I was going to chuck some chooks in a wheelbarrow and make Jeff wheel it about.
Then I thought I’d make them a cardboard truck

I googled cardboard trucks and they weren’t ringing my bells at all… but I did find instructions on making a plane!
So…out with the box knife and the paints.

Hmmmm… who am I going to get to pilot this little beauty?
I went to the Op Shops to seek out materials to make Pip a flying cap etc… but actually found a little teddy bear in a cap and coat!
$3 later and he’s all mine
Swimming goggles were hard to find, but the last opshop had one pair!!

Pip is a total champion when it comes to putting up with this nonsense! He sat in his Spitfire ready to go!

Just played about in photoshop to give this snap an ‘in the air’ feeling!

Then it was time for the ‘real’ photoshoot!

I spent a bit of time setting up the plane, a cloud and making sure the camera was ready and settings correct before dressing up our pilot again

The picture below was the one I used along with the following capiton:

Wing Commander Pipsworth loves to fly about in his Spitfire, combing through the cloud(s) for Messerschmitt’s – although he refuses to get into dogfights as that is beneath him. On weekends he likes to drive a Daimler…

Hope you all got a chuckle from this! We certainly did!
Cheers!

Hello!
Gosh… its just pouring down tonight as I sit here all snug with our fire going!

Bigfoot above?
Just Jeff helping me out with the current Photo Challenge – subject ‘SHOES’

Despite the fairly terrible weather we went for an Anniversary Bay Loop hike the other day.

Overall, apart from the gloom, it was really rather nice out there

Rain threatened but mostly missed us

Here we go… a selfie before heading up into the hills

And still kinda smiling when we made it to the top of (ahem) Bastard Hill
(We both had our packs on – first time I’ve taken mine out on a more demanding hike)

I took a few other ‘shoe’ photos after deliberately jumping in the deepest mud puddles I could find… just in case they worked better than Jeffs big shoe photo

How old am I again??? SO much fun!!

And here is my newest hiking kit!
Microspikes!
You might remember the hike I did just over a year ago with my cousin Leonie up at the Walls of Jerusalem – the track being more of an ice rink than a path.
Nightmare.

Since I am planning on being up on the Overland in Sept. I wanted something to help with it. I don’t care about snow, mud, water etc. But ice freaks me out a bit.
I’d heard people talk about them so investigated and bought some!

They were easy enough to put on and while I didn’t have ice to practice on, they bit into the slippery mud really well and were also quite comfortable to actually hike in.
They do add a bit of weight… (about 480g total) but I think its worth it. Better than a potential broken leg anyway!!

And to finish off the day… a little sunshine as a treat!
Well… I am off to bed!
Will be nice to lie there and listen to the rain!
Cheers!

(Cat tongues sticking out amuse me!)
Hiya!
How was everyones weekend?
I’ve been working on ‘stuff’ as a new photo challenge has started. I’ll share photos soon (2 months prep time and I have precisely two photos ready. Hmmm)

In the interests in saving $$, plastic and keeping Jeff happy, I made a double batch of choc chip bikkies!
They’ve been pretty good!!
Didn’t come even close to fitting into my Nanna’s old Bikkie Tin!

We valiantly ate our way through them so the lid fit on.

Bit of soap here and there.. the above is lemon myrtle. It smells lovely!
I forgot to get a few snaps of the cut version. The yellow bits are like flames!

A double batch of Japanese Honeysuckle – top half with a scrub.

Getting in early on prepping Christmas soaps and trying something a little different with my tree

Love how these turned out… snowy grey scene! I mixed an apple fragrance with peppermint and really like it.
Will attempt a few more batches of this.

I even got out into the back garden for a bit of a tidy up!

Its great to have the straw to immediately mulch once I’ve weeded areas

I left the strawberry patches alone… they’ll need digging up and topping up with soil before replanting. That can be another day

Yikes.
There is a herb spiral in there…

I also did a big pruning out the front of the house and had grand plans of burning the bonfire to the ground.

That was a rather large waste of my afternoon. Failed utterly to get it to keep burning.
I think I would have had to douse it in fuel as it was too wet and green.
And as we know, petrol etc is hideously expensive world wide so just going to have to let it be and dry out a lot more.

Back to the inside fire which I don’t usually have that much trouble with!!
Lovely and cosy in here as the rain is pouring down steadily!

Cheers!

Hi!
Just for something different, I convinced Jeff to come along to an avocado seed carving workshop!

A lovely friend of mine, Jaana, makes these gorgeous natural pendants out of avocado seeds and she’s started doing workshops. I’d been wanting to pop along to one for a while.

The above designs were done by Jeff… he split his in half. I am waiting for mine to dry and pop apart themselves? (Maybe)

Have you ever tried this?
Its such a beautiful process. I can see it being addictive. Just need to get some carving tools.
The seeds were soaked so it made them easy to peel and work with.

Its a bit like magic… you score the surface of the seed or cut in and after a few minutes, the cut area turns this amazing burnt orange colour!

People in the class did a wide variety of patterns and designs. It was pretty fabulous!
Jaana taught us the basics then showed us how to embed things into the seed as well… I did a little blue resin button (made by Jaana for us to use in the class)

A bit hard to see the little bit of… damn it I forget the name of this rock all the time. We panned for them and collected them a while back.

And because my brain is useless I also forgot the name of this seed that I embedded into the Avocado seed! But its a COOL seed with the wrinkles!

And because I was in an embedding mood, I popped a cute little silver bead thingy into my feather design.

Of course… the seeds will shrink as they dry and change colour.
I only have one to show you… one I bought from Jaana a while back.

Still some of the orange colour in there!
And on the back it curves in

We got to take a lot of seeds home so I grabbed a metal skewer and did another couple in front of the telly that night –

I am looking forward to getting some proper tools to experiment more

And last but not least, I carved a Totoro onto a seed! (Fav. Japanese character from the Ghibli Movie Studios and if you’ve not had the pleasure, check them out! There are some excellent movies to see (my favourite being ‘Spirited Away’))
I digress…

Because I am NOT an artist when it comes to drawing even a convincing stick figure, I had to trace the character then try to copy it onto my seed.
I am happy it actually LOOKS like Totoro!
I wonder what they will all look like when they shrink and dry?
I’ll let you know.
It really was an enjoyable few hours of creativeness and meeting a few new people!

And next time you get an avocado seed… have a go! Its pretty cool fun 🙂

Cheers!

(PS… Leaving you with todays Fossil Bluff view)(Low clouds today!)

Hello.
Gosh we’ve had quite the streak of frosty nights and mornings!

RIP Flossie Veloci. 🙁 We palliated her for a couple of weeks. I thought she might perk up as I was hand feeding her all sorts of treats and she did rally slightly.
In the end she got BnB in the cat carrier inside overnight and the warm sunny hothouse in the day. But it was not to be 🙁

We also said goodbye to Freckles but in a nicer way.
After a gender pronoun reassignment, he is now back on his original property and hopefully doing well.
The hens can now eat in peace as he was a greedy butt!

This week I’ve knuckled down and done the 11km round hike about every second day with my pack (currently at 14kgs)
The river track with the bonus view up on Fossil Bluff is most enjoyable… even on the dodgy days.
Been taking a snap from the top each time to compare.

Tide in

Tide out – Sunny

Tide out – Not so sunny…

Me standing on the edge of the cliff…

Worth the short but huff and puff worthy climb

It doesn’t look too bad from this shot.

Found some flax along the track.
So foraged and got Jeff to carry it back!

The river track is so handy and pleasant to walk around

(Low tide)
And I can’t believe I am seeing the wattle out!

This was a gorgeous sunny days walk

Broccoli slowly coming along

Cant wait until we can eat it!

The potatoes sitting up nicely too

I seem to have a slew of craft things happening at the moment… But it is nice to have those projects sitting there for the rainy days or early nights by the fire

Weird knee rug I’ve been working on for the ‘knitting for charity’ group I often go to Monday mornings.
Being a born rebel, I am crocheting.
Since it was school holidays we got some younger kids pop in. Last week I was teaching a young girl how to crochet – she knew how to chain stitch but that was it. She went really well. Hoping she comes back next Monday so I can teach her the start of a blanket.

Spare yarn and rope and crocheted a basket…

It was just to see if I could 🙂

Anyway, hope everyone is having a totally super weekend!!
Cheers!

Hey there!
Just a few snaps of the unmoulded/cut soaps from the class.
Above was a shimmy design (Anjou pear and Lemon Zest) that I made so the participants could have a go at cutting slices of soap off the loaf.

This lemongrass scented soap had a lovely two tone design! Simple with some poppyseeds mixed into the top layer (and some soap butterfly embeds)

This lovely natural soap was scented with Key Lime Tart fragrance with a subtle swirl of Green French Clay.
A bit of fun with butterfly embeds and poppy seeds

Another lady had a lot of fun swirling a very pretty mermaid blue mica into a variety of my patterned moulds

The fragrance she used was ‘Blueberry’

Another student decided on giving the loaf mould a go and chose ‘Dragons Blood’ as the fragrance.
It turned out lovely with a solid base colour with the top mixed with sprinkles!

And lastly, using the lime and coconut fragrance, this deep blue and white design turned out great with really interesting folds of the colours!

And lastly, I finally got around to cutting the soap I made as a demo during the class and loved the patterns on the inside!

I used Peppermint for the fragrance

I think the wobbles is what you get when you make a very fluid batch of soap then chuck it in the car to drive home!

But excellent effects

I’ve had a LOT of interest to do more classes, so looking at doing another one possibly in August 🙂

Lets finish on a culinary note…
I went to a local workshop on making sourdough bread!
It was excellent fun and apart from mixing and kneading up our own loaves, the lady baked some she had prepared so we all got a taste at the end.
Soooo good.
(I still have to get info on the starter but I really want to do this as a regular thing.)
Mine baked up beautifully the next morning and we (mostly me) thoroughly enjoyed eating our way through it!

Hope everyone is having a lovely weekend!
Cheers!

Well… theres the straw!
Will hopefully last a while.
Have popped several bales in the garage out of the weather so we’ve got access to dry chook bedding!

Poor Floss is unwell. No oomph
She’s spending her days in the hothouse out of the weather and full access to treats/food that she doesn’t have to fight the others for.
Fingers crossed she perks up

I STILL haven’t managed to get the white garlic in!!!
But the purple garlic is all going along nicely

Jeff dragged me out in the cold with my camera the other night to check out Frog Village

So many cute little frogs living in the ‘Bonsai’ Rhododendron

Glad to see them hanging about!

Back to soap…

A bit of bubblewrap on my Honey Milk and Oats soap again to make the honeycomb pattern

Speaking of soapy stuff…
Been caught up preparing my first solo workshop.
Sharon isn’t doing them at the moment, and I was asked to do one by the local group who I do the basket weaving through!

I had five ladies come along to learn (I capped it at five since I was on my own – although I did have amazing volunteer help with Michelle and Mal who ran about washing dishes etc which was a lifesaver!!)

It was fun setting up. I’d written out some notes for the students and baked a cake
I had to talk at them for quite a while with all the background soaping information and they were very patient and got involved asking questions etc. so that was nice.

I pre made most of the lye which made things slicker and faster when it came to everyone making their own batch.
Since its a critical part and I wanted them to be VERY aware of how to handle it and the dangers, I did one demo of mixing the lye into the water.
Everyone was a bit shocked on how quickly the mixture heated up to dangerous levels.

We got through all five batches quite well with the ladies choosing a wide variety of fragrances, colours and designs.

I’ll start unmoulding later today and get some updated snaps of the finished soaps
The dining room is COVERED in soap and it was a bit tricky getting them all flat in the car to transport home!
Later this week I’ll arrange dropoff/collection for everyone.

The ladies had a great day – even said not to bother advertising the next one as they just all wanted to come back and do it again!! (Nawwww)
They had the bright idea to get their own moulds so they could make soap and then just take it home with them!

First… I need to recover!
I swear I was more sore and tired after that than when I did that accidental 7 hour hike the other day!
I STILL have most of my gear in the slate room because I’ve not mustered the energy to go put everything away!

But it was fun! I even got time to do my show off demo!

Hope your weekend has been great so far!
Cheers